


Brave New World

by potentiality_26



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Wild Wild West (TV)
Genre: Background Het, Birthday, Brief Discussion of Mpreg, Crossover, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Artie/Lily, Slash, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1215934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I did want to… warn you, I suppose.  It’s just that, ‘Jim, I won’t technically be born for a couple thousand years,’ is really difficult to work into a conversation.  Also, I only half believed that he’d ever come back for me.”</em>
</p><p>Artie was a companion of the Doctor.  Jim is trying to figure some things out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> You can read my somewhat rambling- and potentially more confusing than enlightening- notes on how this fits into the _Doctor Who_ timeline [here](http://potentiality-26.livejournal.com/26375.html). Also, a shout out to [Wanderer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderer) for helping me finally put the last touches on this puppy, and [sunwing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sunwing), who gave me a prompt a _long_ while ago that inspired some of this- it's probably not what you wanted, but it's where my brain went.

Artie was making tea. That man- Doctor, Artie had called him- hadn’t really seemed to want any and Jim didn't either, but Artie was making it anyway, probably just to do something. Jim leaned against the doorjamb and watched his partner dart from shelf to shelf in the kitchen, his stillness forming a sharp contrast with Artie’s nervous energy. As he watched, Jim sipped from a tumbler of whiskey.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Artie was saying. Babbling. “I know I should have said something earlier.”

“About the fact that a crazy man in a blue box might show up one day and ask to whisk you away from here, or about the fact that you’re not technically from _here_ at all- here meaning in this case _this century_?”

Artie stopped and stared at Jim, looking remarkably like a startled deer. “Either,” he said. “Both. I did want to… warn you, I suppose. It’s just that, ‘Jim, I won’t technically be born for a couple thousand years,’ is really difficult to work into a conversation. Also, I only half believed that he’d ever come back for me.” Artie gave a weird little almost-laugh and went back to looking for their third cup. His hands were shaking faintly.

And just like that, Jim didn’t like the Doctor very much.

He didn’t say so, though. He took another sip, marveling that there had been a time- that very day, in fact- when his primary concern had been whether or not Artie had plans for that evening, and whether or not those plans involved Jim somewhere else. “Look,” he said. “I won’t pretend that I get just who the hell he is, where he’s going or how exactly he plans to get there in that ridiculous box. But you do know that you’re not going anywhere without me, don’t you?” Jim thought he sounded awfully sure of himself, given how he actually felt.

Artie froze again, teacup in hand, and the deer look came back. “I hadn’t thought that was in question.” He put the teacup down. “What I mean to say is- I don’t- I mean, _we_ don’t- have to-”

“I know,” Jim said. He even managed to smile. “But you want to go.”

“I _want_ to show you the universe.” Artie sighed. “I have ever since I’ve known you.”

“Show me,” Jim said.

*   *   *

Jim had known that the Doctor was going to be trouble from the first time he saw him, of course. If he couldn’t look out the parlor window one evening, see a large blue box materialize out of nowhere, and identify _trouble_ \- well, he wouldn’t be very good at his job, would he? Out of the box had hopped a young man wearing a bow tie- and Jim _was_ very good at his job, so he had his pistol trained on him and his bow tie before he’d gotten more than a foot away from that box.

“Put your hands up and turn around slow,” Jim had said. “Or you won’t like what happens.”

“I believe you,” the young man wearing the bow tie had replied. “May I show you my credentials?”

“Please do.”

The young man had turned around, gravel crunching under his feet, and brandished a card holder at Jim. Jim had eyed it, and noticed that the identification card it held was- somehow- flashing rapidly from one inscription to another. Sometimes, it was a secret service agent’s I.D. just like the one Jim carried, only in the name of John Smith. Others, it was the calling card of the Duke of York, and still others the head of some overseas manufacturing company. Most bizarrely, it at one point became simply a white slip of paper which proclaimed him to be the cake inspector.

Jim had raised an eyebrow.

In the process of saying something, the young man had squinted at Jim and seemed to change his mind at the last moment. He simply said, “It’s you.”

“Do I… know you?” Jim had asked him, fairly sure that he didn’t- and yet there had certainly appeared to be recognition in the young man’s eyes.

The young man had paused, considering. “Obviously not,” he’d replied, deflating slightly.

They’d stared awkwardly at each other for a moment. The young man’s card holder was clearly not having the effect he’d expected it to. Jim’s pistol, still trained on the young man, was quite frankly not having the effect _he’d_ expected it to. So, Jim had done what he usually did when circumstances had him stymied and called for Artie.

When Artie arrived he’d been armed too, and the young man had been similarly unconcerned by _his_ gun, although he did look somewhat… stricken. He’d stared into Artie’s face liked he’d seen a ghost. “Artemus?”

For a beat, Artie had seemed uncertain. He’d frowned and looked at the young man hard, and then he’d glanced to the side and noticed the blue box, apparently for the first time. Then his eyes had snapped back to the young man. “Doctor?”

The young man had nodded eagerly.

Artie had laughed out loud and launched himself forward.

Watching them embrace, Jim had felt a flush of something that he had to admit- to himself, at least- was jealousy. “You know him, Artie?” he’d asked.

“Yeah,” Artie had said, grinning so broadly it looked like it hurt. “He’s a- well, we’ve met, anyway.” The flush had deepened, then, and for a moment, Jim had forgotten all about the strangeness of the young man’s appearance- leaping as he had out of a box Jim would have thought too small to accommodate him with any degree of comfort- in favor of much more mundane worries. Just what had Artie changed his mind about saying? Was it possible that he had a… history with this young man? The kind he might shrink from sharing with Jim?

Shaking his head, Jim had tried to write this off as paranoia and nothing more. It was just the time of year, he told himself. This particular date had rarely been a good one for Jim. When they were first partnered, Artie’s birthday had seemed a day like any other- they might have a mission, they might not. As he’d gotten to know Artie better, Jim had discovered that Artie had very little love for the day of his birth; it tended to bring out the worst in him, as if it was a reminder of things he didn’t care to think about. Also as he’d gotten to know Artie better- and to, well, love him better- Jim had begun to hate the day, because it always made him feel so… powerless. If they didn’t have orders that time of year, Jim would run like a coward, not caring how he spent the day so long as he didn’t spend it watching Artie try to bury memories that he would never willingly share with Jim. Over the years, Jim had managed to convince himself that Artie preferred it that way, and would want him gone.  

They’d had orders this year which had been rescinded, and Jim had spent all day on his toes; but Artie had seemed oddly sanguine all evening- indeed, he’d frequently cast a worried look Jim’s way, as if the only thing making this particular day unlike any other was Jim’s own jumpiness.

“Jim, this is the Doctor,” Artie had said. “Doctor, this is my partner, Jim.” Then he’d taken the man- the Doctor- by the shoulders and examined him with a mixture of excitement and concern shining in his eyes. “What happened? You’re… never mind, I can guess. Get inside and let me look at you.”

He had tugged the Doctor aboard the train.

Jim had lingered outside, puzzled as ever. Then, just as he was about to go in, he’d noticed that he could hear snatches of what was said between Artie and his… friend.

“-going to say to your partner?” Jim had heard the Doctor asking. He’d wondered if the Doctor knew that his question was the very one Jim had been asking himself- and swallowed heavily. He’d suddenly felt ashamed- ashamed to be eavesdropping, and ashamed to have felt so possessive of his friend in the first place.

“Well, I was going to tell him you were an old friend- for me it’s been ten years since I saw you last- but with that new face you look about twelve and I didn’t think he’d buy it.”

“Twelve,” the Doctor had snorted. Then, “Really?”      

Artie had laughed, but then he’d grown quieter and more serious. “-happened, Doctor?”

The Doctor’s voice had gone softer then, and Jim hadn’t been able to hear everything. The Doctor had said something about two people called Amy and Rory, and how he’d taken them back home to keep them out of some kind of trouble he was in, and that then he’d ended up here and his TARDIS- which Jim gathered was the blue box, a woman, or both somehow- had refused to leave. “Any idea why?” The Doctor had asked Artie.

“I expect she thinks you need help.”

It had become obvious from the graveness in both their voices that their conversation was meant to be private.   Jim had been unable justify remaining outside any longer to himself, so he’d climbed aboard the train and poured himself a drink. Artie and the Doctor had been sitting on the couch- very close together- at that point, and Jim had gone all the way to the sleeping compartment, where he wouldn’t be able overhear them even if he was tempted to try. He’d refused to let himself think about what he would do if they wanted to… use it.

But nothing like that had happened, and when Jim had finally gotten bored of waiting he’d come through Artie’s lab and heard them still talking. Artie was telling an anecdote from one of their recent missions and the Doctor was laughing.

When Jim had reached the parlor he’d found them on the couch, and then the Doctor had said to Artie, “Come with me.” From the tone of his voice, he didn’t mean outside to look at his box. He meant… wherever it was he was going next- and by the sound of it, it was far.

Artie had opened his mouth, looked at Jim, closed it again, said, “Would you like some tea?” to the Doctor, and made a very quick escape.

It had been perfectly obvious what he’d _wanted_ to say, and though there had as of yet been no violence Jim had become very sure that he’d been right in his initial assessment of the Doctor. He was trouble.

*   *   *

Everything else Jim knew about the Doctor- not all that much, really- had been explained a fever pace somewhere between the part where the Doctor had asked Artie to come with him, and the part where Artie had said that _they_ would.

The Doctor had a time machine, apparently, which Artie had travelled in before- and Artie, in fact, originally hailed from was to Jim the future, so it wasn’t exactly strange that Artie might want to travel in it again. Jim had invited himself along for the ride because he was unwilling to surrender the field when he’d only just learned he was fighting a battle. It was easily the most awkward thing he’d ever done- but when Artie had talked like he’d had no intention of going unless Jim was coming too, it had reminded Jim exactly why Artie was worth it.

*   *   *

Though it took longer than he would have liked to convince his nerves of the fact, Jim knew that if he wanted a better explanation he only had to wait. Normally his money would have been on Artie cracking first, because he disliked silence, and Jim’s silence most of all- but this was something that Artie had managed to keep his mouth shut about for years and it was pretty damned important, so Jim thought it would be the Doctor.

It was, and he didn’t even make it past their first trip.

This was probably because Jim made the Doctor uncomfortable. He’d begun to suspect as much around the fifth time the Doctor scanned him to check that he was really a human from the 19th century. Once, or even twice, Jim would have called caution- even commended, to a certain extent- but much more than that was another matter entirely.

Artie would try to tell Jim later that he made the Doctor uncomfortable because the Doctor’s psychic paper hadn’t convinced him that he was a member of the queen’s secret service inspecting the train for an upcoming royal visit or something, and because he hadn’t said, “Doctor who?” when Artie introduced them, or exclaimed, “It’s bigger on the inside!” when he stepped aboard the TARDIS.

Jim, who had entirely expected that card holder to be a fraud from the moment the Doctor pulled it out, and who took Artie at his word unless he had reason not to, and who had suspected that the blue box was somehow bigger on the inside more or less from the moment the Doctor stepped out of it, thought there was probably another reason. He didn’t know what it was yet, but he planned to find out.

After coaxing his blue box into a rather harrowing takeoff and then waxing poetical about the universe at large, the Doctor explained his history with Artie thusly-

They met while Artie was still a student- Jim gathered that a squid monster, the Doctor telling Artie that there were better ways to see the universe than with the Time Agency, and really a lot of running, had all been involved at appropriate intervals- and the Doctor had thought Artie was brilliant.

-Apparently, as far as the Doctor was concerned, further no explanation was necessary.

Jim kept waiting.

Later, they were standing in a bazaar on the streets of what the Doctor called twenty-third century Earth, and Jim got a little more out of him.

Artie was asking a street performer with what looked like tentacles on his head to play a song in a language Jim had never heard of while the Doctor looked on with a mixture of pride and distress. Jim felt that flush of jealousy again, because along with the pride and distress he saw something proprietary in the Doctor’s regard that he didn’t like. But he buried it and didn’t speak.

His reward came when the Doctor said, “I never wanted to leave him behind,” without looking at Jim.

“No?” Jim asked, without looking at the Doctor.

“It’s just that sometimes I don’t have a choice. The things he did in your time- with you- he _had_ to do them. I tell myself, sometimes, that he was always going to end up there, and if I hadn’t been his ride someone else would have been.”

“Does that comfort you?”

“Not really. Not when he ended up staying to save me.” The Doctor sighed. “I met him during a very difficult time in my life, you know.”

“Me too,” Jim shared, because even though he still didn’t like the Doctor very much he thought he deserved something.

The Doctor smiled slightly. “He made me feel like things were going to be all right someday. Not… soon, but someday. You see, something… bad was coming back then. And… something bad is coming now. Not anywhere near as bad as before- I know that, but there’s something inside me that I can’t quite seem to convince of it, and I just- I guess I needed him. Without knowing that I did. And when I landed… there I was. It’s… odd, actually.”

“Odd?”

“There was a time that I spent the better part of a decade doing nothing but try to get her to take me to wherever he was. And now…” The Doctor shrugged and went quiet again for a while. Then, just when Jim thought he was finished, he added, “I’ve travelled with a lot of different people, and every time I part ways with one I think I’ll never want to ask anyone again. And then… and then I do.”

The music started playing. Jim smiled. “You’re not so bad,” he said to the Doctor. “I may not have to shoot you.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor replied, expression contorting. “I think.”

“You’re welcome.” Jim thought it was very magnanimous. He didn’t usually give people who put Artie in danger that much leeway- and he had a feeling the Doctor wasn’t done.

An hour later, the Doctor proved him right.

*   *   *

Jim liked the TARDIS. Artie spoke to her, and insisted to Jim that she answered if you knew how to listen. He constantly told the Doctor that she didn’t like it when he did this or said that; the Doctor ignored him.

Jim wasn’t sure what to believe, but he told the TARDIS things himself on occasion- and though the answer was always just a low hum he sort of knew what she meant.

Sometimes Jim lay awake at night listening to that hum and considering what he knew about the Doctor.

He knew that there had been a war, and that the Doctor was in it. It was his opinion that the ‘something bad’ the Doctor mentioned having met Artie before was that war. The Doctor didn’t ever call it a war in Jim’s presence- at least, not until long after Jim had dubbed it so in his mind- but Jim never questioned the instinct. He knew the look too well.  

He knew that the Doctor didn’t like guns- any weapons at all, really. He had relieved Jim of most of his early on, which was a problem, though not an insurmountable one. Jim was getting better at hiding weapons from the Doctor.

He knew that the Doctor wasn’t human. He was much, much older than he looked and when he said things like, ‘I was a different man then,’ it was somehow at least partially true.  

He knew that the Doctor actually knew more about Artie than Jim did- and it said something about Jim’s priorities of late that this was the thing that irked him most about the Doctor.

Whenever Jim considered it, the TARDIS would give a sympathetic hum.

*   *   *

Jim waited, breathless, in the TARDIS’s doorway for Artie, and then he slammed the door behind them. Their pursuers crashed into it seconds later, just as the Doctor started a somewhat bumpy takeoff. It wasn’t something Jim would have believed in previous years- if he could go back in time and tell himself so, which he plausibly could actually do- but hanging around the Doctor was proving to be more dangerous than being a secret service agent had ever been. He was having the time of his life.

Next to him, Artie was swaying tiredly. Jim steadied him and didn’t let go.

Artie turned to him and said, “Close one,” grinning, and Jim’s mouth went dry. It had been years since he’d begun to realize how he really felt about Artie- but how very handsome he was still shocked Jim on occasion.

Maybe he leaned in, maybe Artie did- or maybe neither of them did and the TARDIS had just given a very particular lurch- but their lips brushed.

Automatically, Jim jerked back as if he’d received an electric shock- his lips were tingling as though he had- and said, “Sorry,” even though Artie didn’t look distressed.

In fact, he was still grinning. “Don’t be,” he said. “What took you so long?”

That time they both leaned forward.

“Don’t mind me,” the Doctor said loudly when he glanced up and saw them kissing. “Just the third wheel. Again.”

Jim felt Artie’s grin against his lips and only deepened the kiss. Artie’s hands found Jim’s ass and squeezed firmly.

“Ugh,” the Doctor groaned, and hopefully averted his eyes.

*   *   *

Jim found Artie in the library one night, curled up in an armchair. He was just sort of… staring at the wall, which was something he usually only did when he was deeply distressed. “What is it?” Jim asked. He perched on the chair arm, close to Artie but not touching him. Things were still too new between them for him to be entirely sure of his welcome with Artie in this sort of mood.

“The Doctor,” Artie said, at last. “I’ve known he was… different since last I saw him- and I don’t just mean the face. Do you know he’s had two others since then?”

Smiling a little at the tangent, Jim shook his head.

“Anyway. I only just found out what happened.” Artie sighed. “In the war… his people… they died. All of them.”

“Hell,” Jim said, quietly. There wasn’t much else to say.

Artie reached out and took Jim’s hand and they were quiet for a while. “What about you?” he asked then.

“What about me?”

“There’s been something bothering you, too.”

Jim looked sidelong at his partner, then his eyes fell their joined hands. “Well, it’s going to sound silly, now,” he remarked.

“Most things would,” Artie replied. “Tell me anyway.”

“It’s just… I just realized. Lily Fortune. If you knew her when you were young, then she must have been from- well, wherever it is that you’re from.”

“Her mother too,” Artie said. There was humor in his voice, but also uncharacteristic hesitation. Where Artie came from was a topic that they had danced carefully around ever since the Doctor arrived, and Jim didn’t know how to broach it.

“Lyle Peters got more than he bargained for with that one, then,” Jim joked, weakly. He swallowed and the back of his throat ached. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He wasn’t, really, now that _he_ was with Artie, and he was fairly sure that made it all worse.

“Hey,” Artie said gently, and squeezed Jim’s hand. “Mad as I was at you at the time, I don’t think you can reasonably take credit for single-handedly driving the woman away. She’d already made her decision and it was the right one. If I’d managed to change her mind we would’ve just ended up resenting each other. Fact is, we were never that well suited- otherwise I wouldn’t have let her go the first time.”

Jim raised their joined hands to kiss the back of Artie’s.

“You took all this so much better than I could have hoped for,” Artie whispered. “It’s enough. All I really wanted was someone I didn’t have to hide myself from.”

This alone made sense of a lot of things that had always puzzled Jim about Artie, but the fact of the matter was that Artie was _still_ hiding himself from Jim. Jim knew he’d learned almost nothing about the man’s real life, but he decided not to push- not right then, anyway. He had time; he could wait for Artie to catch up with him. “Artie, I-” Jim stumbled, swallowed. “I think part of me always knew that you weren’t… like everyone else. I’d never want you to be, anyway.”

Artie smiled crookedly. “I should hope not. Shall I show you something I know that ‘everyone else’ definitely doesn’t?”  

Jim nodded, and Artie pulled him close.

*   *   *

It was inevitable, really, that Jim would meet someone from Artie’s birthplace eventually. And if the initial results were less than wonderful, well- given how well he’d taken everything thus far, he was entitled one hiccup, wasn’t he?    

In case things weren’t complicated enough, it wasn’t even in Artie’s time that they met the Time Agent. The Doctor made himself scarce after pretending not to know the man when he obviously already did- so things were likely even more complicated than Jim knew. What with the toothy smile and the flirting and the frankly terrifying incidents that he and Artie were reminiscing about, Jim didn’t actually catch his name.

What Jim did catch was the rarity of… relationships, as such- to say nothing of monogamy- in their society.

Given that even after several months with the Doctor Artie had still told Jim almost nothing about the time he came from, was it really so strange that Jim took this information to heart? He was damned if he’d let either of them see that he had, though, so when he was addressed he said something about a brave new world, and Artie was sufficiently blinded by Shakespeare that he missed Jim’s small existential crisis altogether.

There were men like that in Jim’s time too, of course. Popular opinion put Jim among them. But he’d always assumed that Artie knew that he wasn’t, not really, and that Artie wasn’t either. He’d assumed, in fact, that they both wanted the kind of relationship that was, in Jim’s time, normal- except with each other. He wondered if that had been a fair assumption to make.

Artie had as much as told him that he’d asked Lily Fortune to marry him only because she was the last connection to home he’d thought to have- maybe he hadn’t just meant Lily but marriage as well. And now that Artie could go anywhere and meet anyone, theirs might be a temporary arrangement more than anything; Jim couldn’t just assume differently. He had to ask, didn’t he?

“What kind of a question is that?” Artie demanded flatly when he did.

“A fair one, I think.” Jim sighed. “It’s pretty clear that where- _when_ \- I come from is practically the Stone Age to you, and I know you’re used to it by now but- I should’ve asked. I mean- your parents weren’t married, were they?”

“One of my parents could’ve been a cat!”

Jim tried to figure out if this was rhetorical device or a legitimate possibility.

“Genetic roulette. Sometimes you get kittens, sometimes you don’t.”

Jim still hadn’t figured it out.

“One of my parents could’ve been the man you just met! Between him and that other one- his partner at the Time Agency, I can never remember his name- they were somewhere on the family tree of just about everyone on the planet I lived on. Which made the ‘are we genetically compatible and/or closely related?’ portion of the first date a little awkward.”

Since it was apparently still all he could do, Jim filed this newest tidbit of cultural information away for later and said, “Where are you going with this?”

“Honestly?” Artie looked pained. “I’ve forgotten. But I’m angry and I don’t think I want to talk to you for a while.”

“How long?”

“At least three days.”

And that was bad, though nowhere near as bad as the Doctor’s attempt to fix it by taking them somewhere romantic- which ultimately culminated in them hanging in an upside-down prison awaiting execution.

“You know, James,” Artie observed, “I always planned on dying with you, but this wasn’t really what I pictured.” And just like that, it was stupid to have ever doubted it.

“The Doctor will save us?” Jim suggested.

“I was always more in the ‘save yourself’ camp, really.”

“Me too.”

And the Doctor was so happy to have cut the three day silent treatment in half that he didn’t even yell about their liberal use of explosive chemistry. Much.

*   *   *

One day, Artie told the Doctor that he’d been keeping track of the time and that he preferred not to die on his birthday if he could help it. The Doctor had wandered off to some other room, muttering about how nobody appreciated that he was time traveler anymore and that he could make it the same day every day if he wanted to.  

They opened up the door of the TARDIS and perched on the edge, watching the stars. Jim liked the quiet almost as much as he liked seeing galaxies reflected back in Artie’s eyes- but what he really wanted was to hear Artie talk to him.

“Tell me something,” Jim requested.    

“Anything in particular?”

“Something you don’t think I can handle.” Jim took Artie’s hand. “Even after everything- even given where we are- I know there are still a lot of those things.”

He heard Artie take a sharp breath and passed his thumb over the back of Artie’s hand. It was possible that- after the Time Agent and what happened after- Artie didn’t think Jim deserved that kind of openness, but he had to try.

“I’m only asking for one of them,” Jim pressed.

Artie sighed. “As may have become… apparent, given my last outburst, I only knew one of my parents. My father.” Artie suddenly gripped Jim’s hand tight. “It’s possible that I didn’t have a mother, strictly speaking. My father… carried me.”

“You mean-”

“Like a woman?” Artie sighed again. “Yes.”

“Artie… can you- I mean, could I-“

“Could you get me pregnant?” Artie laughed softly, a little hollowly. “Would it be discouraging or enticing if you could?”

Jim considered the question carefully, as it deserved, and answered honestly. “Some of both, I suppose. I would’ve liked to have known earlier, but- more the latter, really. God, Artie.” Jim was a bit surprised by the heat in his voice. “If you _wanted_ to…”

Artie flushed beautifully, and laughed again, more nervous than pained now. “I can’t just _get_ pregnant,” he said. “There are pills I’d have to take, doctors I’d have to see- and not on just any world. It takes a year at least to get the body ready. When I was young, I… I always thought I would. Even in couples with a male and a female the man usually carries at least one child. But first I didn’t want to be tied down- most young people didn’t, not with so much to try and so little in the way of inhibitions. Then, after the Doctor, it wasn’t a possibility anymore. I stopped thinking about it. I mean, even if I ever did get back to a time when it could happen- when it was _normal_ \- how could I ask you to…”

“I don’t expect anything,” Jim said. “But if you wanted to- I want to give you children.” He was breathless now, and he didn’t mind if Artie knew it.  

“Jesus, Jim,” Artie managed. “You just jumped into that with both feet, didn’t you?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” Jim whispered, solemnly, and held Artie’s hand tight. “I can handle this. As long as we’re together, there’s nothing too strange.”

“I’m starting to get that. Most people would’ve lost their grip on reality by now.”

“I love you much more than I love reality,” Jim said, and kissed him.

A little later, Artie wandered off looking dazed and the Doctor reappeared. “What did you do to him?” he asked. He saw the dopey expression on Jim’s face. “Never mind. Keep it to yourself.”

*   *   *

As much as he’d disliked the Doctor at first, Jim supposed they’d grown close, after their fashion. In fact, he rather come to enjoy helping the Doctor tinker on the underside of the TARDIS’ panels now and then- a job which largely consisted of passing him half a dozen instruments until the Doctor proclaimed it the right one.

Though they had begun to be friends, Jim surprised himself one evening with the impulse to confide in the Doctor. “I’m-” he began, then second guessed himself.

“Hmm?” The Doctor’s voice was slightly muffled.

“It’s nothing. I’m just… I’m sorry that there were ever times I could have been with him, but I went off by myself instead, especially on his birthday.” After what Artie had told him about his father, Jim had begun to understand why Artie often got so uncomfortable that time of year. He hadn’t ever been able to talk about his family or where or how his born without lying, and every once in a while it had to get to him. But Jim also knew now that- awkward as the day was for him- Artie would have appreciated not being left alone with those thoughts. “Even though we weren’t _together_ together, I wish I could have been there, you know?” Plausibly, the Doctor had no idea.

The Doctor peered up at him from under the panel and grinned like Jim had told him the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard. “I can fix that,” he said. “Or rather, I _have_ fixed it, it just hasn’t happened for you yet.”

Jim considered this. He supposed he should have been more surprised than he was, but the truth was that if the Doctor had met him before, it would explain why Jim had puzzled him so much at first. It was… confusing to contemplate, to be sure- but what wasn’t where the Doctor was involved? “When?” Jim asked.

“In your timeline or mine?”

Jim did begin to get a headache then. “Either.”

“For me it was- maybe a few years ago, maybe a little less. Sometimes I lose track of… well- of time. For you- I’m not entirely sure. Sometime after I take you two home, though.”

Jim frowned when the Doctor mentioned home. He hadn’t really thought about going home before, and he didn’t much care for what he found when he did. “It’s not really home though, is it? It’s where I come from, but not him. And if he wants a different kind of life than we could have there- and I actually sort of hope he does- then I don’t want to go back. Not for good.”

“Well, maybe- oh, _that’s_ clever.” The Doctor fairly glowed.    

“What?”

“I didn’t actually check where and when you were, that first time I found you. Really, it could’ve been anywhere, any when. It could have been New New New Earth, for all I know.”

“Oh,” Jim said. “All right, then.” He turned his attention to these possible trips to Artie’s past. There wasn’t much he’d be able to do, given that he’d known next to nothing about Artie’s past in those days- but it would be something.

“Between you and me,” the Doctor said with a conspiratorial grin. “Artemus told me that that time of year always brought out the best in you.”

Jim smiled. Yes- it would be something.

*   *  *

Artie and the Doctor somehow contrived for them to get their mail on the TARDIS. Every once in a while they received orders from the secret service and asked the Doctor to take them back if they sounded intriguing. Four times in ten, he even managed it.    

They got letters of thanks from royals and statesmen they’d saved, and the occasional missive from Lily Fortune, who clearly knew more about where they were than she let on. All Artie would say on the subject was, “She always did pay more attention in history class than I did.”

Jim got Christmas cards from a woman he'd never met named Amy Williams and her husband Rory, first from the 2010’s and then from the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s and so on.  

It puzzled him, but Artie promised him that he would get used to it, and he did.

He even started writing back.

*   *   *

Eventually Jim started to get… not tired, exactly- just whatever the opposite of wanderlust was. He started to look through the TARDIS’ files for somewhere just right. Somewhere not too hot, maybe with snow in the winter. Where Victorian fashion and tech was in vogue, time travel was legal and the Doctor wasn’t enemy number one. Where the medical care was good and Artie could maintain the fiction he so loved that he was only ten years older than Jim in the coming decades.

It had to be far enough into the future that no one really knew that anyone had ever thought there was something odd about two men making a life together, but not so far that love was thought passé. By the time the TARDIS humbly suggested- by constantly bringing up images of such places at awkward times- that he choose somewhere where someone had decided that police boxes were the most magnificent of man’s creations and had decorated every other street corner with them- Jim was sure there couldn’t be more than one that fit all the parameters, but in the end he submitted a list of six for Artie’s perusal.

Jim could tell that Artie had assumed that Jim would want to go back to where they came from- Jim had stopped truly thinking of it as home the moment he realized it wasn’t Artie’s- and had accepted it, but that he was grateful all the same. He didn’t mind where they were, Jim knew, as long as they were together- but he also wanted to be somewhere that he- they- wouldn’t have to hide.

It wouldn’t all be easy, Jim knew that. It was wonderful and horrible at once to know that, at some point, they’d have to pick the last time they saw all the people they knew from before, but it would be a while yet- and even then, the Doctor had a certain promise to keep.

It was still quite a while before the Doctor said, “Where to next?” and Artie nodded to Jim and Jim handed him the list.    

“You want to see the _other_ five most boring days in history,” the Doctor said, looking at the list with the long-suffering air of one who is finishing a conversation that they started a long time ago.

“Good,” Artie said, leaning against one of the TARDIS’ panels. “We’re not looking for trouble. We’re going house hunting.”

*   *   *

They ended up commissioning a train that looked just like the Wanderer in all its particulars, so Jim understood the Doctor’s initial confusion. When he looked out the parlor window and saw the TARDIS materialize in the snow, he didn’t think anything of it at first. He went out to greet the Doctor and then realized that he hadn’t seen this particular Doctor- the young, bow-tie wearing one he’d first met- in years. Also, there was a red-headed stranger with him. Jim realized that this was going to be the first time that the Doctor met him, and decided that this was going to be _fun_.

“You’re late,” he informed the Doctor.

“Late?” the Doctor repeated.

“You’re later than you implied you’d be,” Jim elaborated. That much was true- much longer, and he’d probably have forgotten the whole thing.  

“Do I… know you?”

“Obviously not,” Jim quoted, amused. “Not yet, anyway.” He turned to the red-head. She was very lovely, and he went out on a limb. “And you’re Amy, yes?” If she was, everything was coming together nicely.

She nodded, looking entranced.

“I’m Jim West.”

The Doctor was frowning, trying to remember how he knew that name. Jim knew that he wouldn’t remember all the newspaper articles and dime novels he’d read that mentioned Jim’s name in conjunction with Artemus Gordon’s until after he saw them together, so he couldn’t help him. He headed for the TARDIS, feeling Amy’s eyes on him heavily- and speculatively- as he went.

“Honestly,” he heard the Doctor hiss. “It’s your wedding day tomorrow. Ish.”

“It never hurts to look,” she replied daintily. “Anyway, he’s with someone.”

“How do you know?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Jim smiled. As it was obvious that _she_ was with someone, though she seemed to be questioning whether she wanted to be. He’d seen enough to know that the Doctor had that effect on some people. He also knew that the effect on Amy would fade. If he could, he’d help it along; he may have never technically met them before, but he already knew from every word on every greeting card he’d ever received that very few couples loved each other more than Amy and Rory Williams did.

“Come on,” Jim said when he reached the TARDIS. “I have an engagement at six, you know.” He was taking Artie to the opera, and Artie hated to wait- especially for something he could hardly get Jim to do more than once a year.  

“For someone that I’m going to meet later, you don’t have a very good grasp of the whole time-machine thing,” the Doctor said tetchily.

Jim gave the Doctor a look he hoped illustrated how little he thought of the Doctor’s ability to get where he wanted to go at the time he wanted to get there.

“Yeah,” Amy put in. “You said five minutes to me, remember?”

The Doctor wilted. Slightly.

Jim wondered about the story behind that, but said only, “You’ve got a promise to keep and so have I.”

“Do I?”

“Yep.   These are the places you’ll take me.” He handed the Doctor a slip of paper, and watched him scowl a second time.

“All the same date in the Earth solar year... all in assorted dead-end towns in America... some a couple of years apart...” the Doctor muttered to himself.

"Can you do it?" Jim asked.

"Of course I can do it," the Doctor replied.  "But..."  He narrowed his eyes at Jim. “All of time and space,” he said, with extra emphasis in case it was unclear. “And you want to see what I’m fairly sure are five of the most boring days in the universe. _Why_ do you want that?”

Jim dearly loved the way the Doctor looked when he was in the dark, but he saw that Amy was curious, so he elaborated. “It’s the birthday of someone I care about, and he was alone on those days. Except that he won’t be.”

The Doctor considered this for a moment, and then he sighed loudly and opened the TARDIS’s door. “Welcome aboard.”


End file.
